
The Front Line
Our communal blog featuring the latest in Civil War news, research, analysis, and events from a network of historians


Published: 11/7/11
The Confederate Perspective: “Port Royal…has been taken by the enemy’s fleet”
“Port Royal, on the coast of South Carolina, has been taken by the enemy’s fleet. We had no casemated batteries. Here the Yankees will intrench themselves, and cannot be dislodged....
Published: 11/7/11
Voices from the Past: “Sagacious Military Conjecture”
Wilder Dwight was a Lieutenant Colonel inthe 2nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Prior to dying September 19, 1862 from wounds at the Battle of Antietam, Dwight wrote some conjectures about...
Published: 11/7/11
Voices from the Past: “The Gratifying Duty”
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Port Royal—one of the earliest amphibious operations of the American Civil War. The United States Navy fleet and the United States...
Published: 11/4/11
Image of the Day: The Dogs of War
From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, “An Incident of Battle — A Faithful Dog Watching the Dead Body of His Master”: Credit: Frank Leslie’s The Soldier in Our Civil War.
Published: 11/3/11
Sarah Morgan’s Arrival in Yankee-Occupied New Orleans
In April 1863, 21-year-old Sarah Morgan, along with her mother and sisters, found herself on a ship headed for the city of her birth, New Orleans. The Morgan family had...
Published: 10/31/11
Mrs. (“Beast”) Butler’s Scary Dream
Happy Halloween! To celebrate, we found a spooktacular letter from the archives… On April 4, 1862, Sarah Hildreth Butler, wife of Union general Benjamin F. (“Beast”) Butler, wrote a friend...
Published: 10/31/11
“They See a Ghost or Something.”
On May 25, 1863, Union soldier David L. Day, of the 25th Massachusetts Volunteers, recorded a strange incident that occurred while his regiment was on a recent nighttime march: Sometime...
Published: 10/31/11
Voices From the Past: “I am truly thankful for the institution of ghosts…”
“You perceive that my idea of ghosts is not limited to graveyards and tombs, or the tenants thereof; indeed, so far from it, the most troublesome I have ever known...
Published: 10/31/11
Voices from the Past – Out of That Silence Rose New Sounds More Appalling Still
The Battle of Fredericksburg (December 11-15, 1862) was a decisive loss for the Union army, crippling northern morale. The chilling quote below derives from Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s description...
Published: 10/28/11
Are You Ready for Some (Civil War) Football?
Winslow Homer’s depiction of Union soldiers playing “Foot-Ball” in camp. Looks harmless enough… Image credit: Library of Congress.
Published: 10/27/11
Teaching Slavery as the Cause of the Civil War
“What caused the Civil War?” Historians have killed forests trying to answer this deceptively simple question. In a recent essay in The Journal of the Civil War Era, Frank Towers...
Published: 10/25/11
Respect My Heritage; You Can Stick Yours
Several news stories appeared in the media recently updating recent developments in a neighborhood dispute in South Carolina that’s been brewing for about year now. The brief recap is that...
Published: 10/24/11
Voices From the Past: “An Inferior Force”
“Well, so far we seem to have applied a new maxim of war, always to meet the enemy with an inferior force at the point of attack.” —General George B....
Published: 10/21/11
Ball’s Bluff Remembered
One hundred fifty years ago today, on October 21, 1861, Union troops suffered a humiliating defeat in what would come to be known as the Battle of Ball’s Bluff. After...
Published: 10/20/11
Progress and Change and Preservation
A few Fridays ago I took a short tour of the Chantilly, or Ox Hill, Battlefield. Short, of course, because aside from a five-acre section preserved within a county park,...
Published: 10/18/11
“Coal for the Furnaces is as important as Gunpowder for the Guns”
“The Saltpeter is the Soule, the Sulphur is the Life, and the Coales the Body of it.” — John Bate, The Mysteryes of Nature and Art (1634) If cannon and...
Published: 10/17/11
Southward Bound
One hundred fifty years ago today—October 17, 1861—25-year-old Lieutenant W. H. Timberlake of the 8th Maine Volunteers wrote the following letter from his regiment’s camp in Annapolis, Maryland. The men...
Published: 10/13/11
Bolting On the Civil War Navy
Several months back, my friend Matthew Eng, coordinator at the Hampton Roads Navy Museum, asked me why the naval aspects of the Civil War tend to stand off from the...